The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Slave Boy, sentence 138
Then, clapping his hands together and knocking his knees against the trunk of the tree, he began to sing.
Who acts: boy · What happens: clap, knock, begin, sing · To what, where: hands, knees, trunk
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Slave Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 19 began | advmod |
| 2 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 1 Then | punct |
| 3 | clapping | clap | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 19 began | advcl |
| 4 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 hands | nmod:poss |
| 5 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 clapping | obj |
| 6 | together | together | ADV | _ | 3 clapping | advmod |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 knocking | cc |
| 8 | knocking | knock | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 3 clapping | conj |
| 9 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 knees | nmod:poss |
| 10 | knees | knee | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 knocking | obj |
| 11 | against | against | ADP | _ | 13 trunk | case |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 trunk | det |
| 13 | trunk | trunk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 knocking | obl |
| 14 | of | of | ADP | _ | 16 tree | case |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 tree | det |
| 16 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 trunk | nmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 clapping | punct |
| 18 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 began | nsubj |
| 19 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 20 | to | to | PART | _ | 21 sing | mark |
| 21 | sing | sing | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 19 began | xcomp |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 19 began | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | clap | gerund | boy not said here | boy's hands | together property | vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location hand=Theme | |||
| 2 | knock | gerund | boy not said here | boy's knees | the trunk of the tree | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent knee=Theme against trunk=Destination | |||
| 3 | begin | past | boy | then | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | ||||
| 4 | sing speech: express | to-infinitive | boy not said here | vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.
Text: «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/29/138/